Athens with more money and better light
Kolonaki sits on the lower slopes of Lycabettus Hill, roughly a kilometre east of Syntagma, and it has the particular atmosphere of a neighbourhood that is confident in its own status without needing to perform it. The streets are cleaner than most of central Athens, the shops are more expensive, the cafes serve coffee at €4 instead of €2, and the clientele at the outdoor tables on Tsakalof and Milioni streets in the morning is principally Athenian rather than tourist.
It is not pretentious in the way of a comparable Paris arrondissement. Greek affluence tends to sit more lightly than that. But it is distinctly different from Psyrri or Exarchia — this is where the professional classes live and eat, where the embassies cluster, and where Athens’ best museums happen to be concentrated.
For visitors, Kolonaki is the museum district of Athens, with the funicular to Lycabettus Hill providing the payoff for a full day.
The Benaki Museum
The Benaki Museum on Koumpari street (corner of Vasilisis Sofias, five minutes from Syntagma) is the finest private collection in Greece and among the best museums for Greek history and decorative arts in the world. The building was the Benaki family mansion; Antonis Benakis donated it and his lifetime’s collection to the Greek state in 1931.
The permanent collection runs from Neolithic gold jewellery through Byzantine icons, Ottoman-era crafts, traditional Greek regional dress, and 19th-century paintings — four floors covering 5,000 years in a coherent narrative. The rooftop cafe has an unobstructed view toward the Acropolis and is worth a coffee even if you only visit one floor of the museum.
Entry is €12 (adults); the museum closes on Tuesdays. Thursday evenings it stays open until midnight with a reduced entry fee — a good option if afternoons are taken with outdoor sites.
The Byzantine and Christian Museum
Directly east on Vasilisis Sofias, in a 19th-century villa, the Byzantine and Christian Museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of Byzantine art. The display is intelligently arranged: the first section contextualises early Christianity and its visual culture; the upper galleries contain icons, frescoes, manuscripts and metalwork from the 4th through 15th centuries. It is less visited than it deserves to be.
Entry is €8. The cafe in the courtyard is good and the garden it occupies — shaded by large trees — is among the more pleasant outdoor spaces in the city on a hot day.
The National Gallery (Ethnike Pinakotheke)
Reopened in 2021 after a decade-long renovation, the National Gallery on Vasilisis Konstantinou holds Greece’s primary collection of post-Byzantine and modern Greek painting, plus significant European works including El Greco pieces (he was Cretan-born and trained in the Byzantine tradition before moving to Venice and then Toledo). The building is an improvement on its predecessor; the collection is uneven but the El Grecos alone justify a visit.
Entry is €10. Combined tickets with the Benaki or Byzantine Museum are available at reduced rates.
Tsakalof street and Kolonaki square
Tsakalof is the neighbourhood’s social spine — a pedestrianised street running uphill from Kolonaki square with outdoor tables for most of its length. The morning coffee ritual here, with newspapers and strong espresso, is a minor Athens institution. The side streets connecting Tsakalof to Milioni and Skoufa have the most concentrated stretch of independent boutiques in Athens: clothing, jewellery, bookshops, homeware. The quality is high and the prices are consequently higher than elsewhere in the city.
Kolonaki square itself (officially Plateia Filikis Eterias) is surrounded by cafes and populated most of the day; it is not beautiful but it functions as the neighbourhood’s living room in a way that feels authentically local rather than designed for tourism.
Getting up to Lycabettus
The funicular up Lycabettus Hill departs from a station on Plutarchou street, at the top of Kolonaki’s main uphill drag. It runs every 30 minutes, costs €7 return, and takes about three minutes to climb the 210 metres to the summit. The alternative — a series of steep steps and paths through pine forest from the back of Kolonaki — takes 20–30 minutes and is pleasant in cooler weather.
The full Lycabettus experience is described in the Lycabettus Hill page. The view from the summit is the best panorama in Athens and the reason Kolonaki is a logical base for the evening.
The Lycabettus timeless hills tour begins in Kolonaki and covers the hill’s history and the 360-degree city panorama with a local guide — worth pairing with the museum visits for a full Kolonaki day.
Where to eat in Kolonaki
Kolonaki restaurants skew more expensive than elsewhere in Athens but several are worth it. The area around Xenokratous street has a good concentration of neighbourhood tavernas that serve a non-tourist clientele. Budget €20–35 per person for a proper sit-down meal with wine; the same money in Plaka or Monastiraki tends to return less for the price.
For wine specifically, Kolonaki’s wine bar scene is the most developed in central Athens. Several bars on Milioni and Skoufa have well-curated lists of Greek regional wines — Assyrtiko from Santorini, Xinomavro from Naoussa, Agiorgitiko from Nemea — that are hard to find in the tourist-focused districts.
The wine and sommelier tour connects Kolonaki’s wine culture to the city’s broader history with a structured tasting and walk — one of the better evening options for visitors with an interest in Greek wine.